phpauction GPL
Wes Faul
Open-Source versions of this. One is available from phpAuction.org as
phpAuction GPL. The other is available from SourceForge.net as phpAuction
NG GPL. I did see one review that said the version from SourceForge.net was
terrible programming, and that the $20.00 that phpAuction.org charges for
their version was worth it to not have to sort out the bad programming. Has
anybody dealt with these two programs before? I'm new to php (but not to
programming), and will need to change either of these heavily. I'm looking
for advice from other people who have used either of these.
Thanks,
Wes
bill
wrote:
>Has anybody had any experience with phpAuction? I've found two different
>Open-Source versions of this. One is available from phpAuction.org as
>phpAuction GPL. The other is available from SourceForge.net as phpAuction
>NG GPL.
You may want to inquire further at:
I believe the NG version is a branched version with maybe one or two
bugs fixed. I could be wrong, I'm really not sure.
I have tried to hack the GPL version of php auction into something
useful, and have come to the conclusion that an entire rewrite is
needed. I'm still working on that, starting with the database and am
still months away from completing that.
The code is so sloppy, I've had to just get up from the computer and
laugh it off. It was written back in the days of PHP 3, I suppose
that's how things were done back then.
As an open source project, the original php auction is dead. The
original author no longer accepts code submissions, and hires
programmers to help code the proprietory versions.
If you're looking for a production ready auction site, then be
prepared to write your own. But if you just want ot learn PHP, then it
may be worth your time to start hacking on the GPL version.
If nothing else, it's a good example of how not to program.
Wes Faul
that bad? I had actually started designing my own db structure, but got to
a place where I didn't know what else I needed (never written auction
software before), so I decided it was time to start programming it. I
thought I'd take a look around first and see if I can modify something
already out there (no use re-inventing the wheel).
Thanks,
Wes
"bill" <who...@whereami.not> wrote in message
news:7q14g0dbldnuetol2...@4ax.com...
bill
wrote:
>Is it at least worth looking at for a place to start? Is the db structure
>that bad? I had actually started designing my own db structure, but got to
>a place where I didn't know what else I needed (never written auction
>software before), so I decided it was time to start programming it. I
>thought I'd take a look around first and see if I can modify something
>already out there (no use re-inventing the wheel).
>Thanks,
>Wes
>
As far as I know, it's the only software available to look at for a
start. I don't know of any other open source PHP auction software that
uses mysql.
Hopefully somebody can prove me wrong on that by posting a link.
The main thing I find lacking in the GPL script is an administrative
accounting system. As an aution site administrator, if you intend to
charge sellers any type of fee for using your site, then you need a
way to keep track of transactions, what features were used to sell,
fees and a way to invoice your sellers for what they owe.
I'm working now on a seller invoice system, but it will be set up to
charge only one flat fee for each successful sale. No fees for
featured plus auctions or bold typeface and things like that.
As for the database, I'm not expert enough to judge whether or not
phpauction is a good or bad design. One thing that makes it difficult
to work with is that Gian is Spanish and doesn't have a good command
of English, so some of the the field and table names seemed a bit
"off" to me. I still haven't figured out what categories_plain is
supposed to mean.
I still don't understand why all the country names are stored both in
an array and in the database, so I changed that so the database stores
only an int value, and put the array into a function to associate the
names with a code number. I did the same thing with the 50 states and
added a value for non-usa states.
There were some things about the users table I disliked so I split
that into two tables, one for web-specific info like email, website,
avatars etc. and one for contact info name, address. I also redid all
the table relationships so that every call to a username or member id
is via an indexed account_id.
I disliked the way phpauction uses md5 to generate auction id's, so I
have mine switched over to using mysql to auto_increment all of the
auction ID's.
But back to your question- my feeling is the phpauction script is fine
for a starting point if you want to learn, but if you want to get
something up and running fast, you might do better to look into some
of the commercial versions.
Wes Faul
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=60226. I'm going to
check it out tonight. If I don't like it, I'll probably start with this and
phpAuction and write my own. I have quite a few enhancements I want to do,
so it's going to be a completely different animal than either of those
packages. Maybe I'll open-source it when I'm done.
Wes
"bill" <who...@whereami.not> wrote in message
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